


Malibu

by imel



Category: Captain America, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Apocalypse, F/M, Female Reader, First Time, Flirting, M/M, POV Second Person, Reader Insert, Reader-Insert, Steve is a badass zombie killer, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:55:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imel/pseuds/imel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to the zombie apocalypse. Luck had been on your side, but when it finally ran out, a super soldier took its place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning of the End

You looked at the paltry amount of food and water you had remaining on the dresser. If you stretched it, you could maybe go another day or two without venturing outside the hotel. You’d already taken what was left in the vending machines inside the hotel, with the help of the trusty fire ax you’d taken from a wall near your room. That part was honestly pretty cool, taking revenge on the vending machines with an ax for all the stuck bags of chips and money they had eaten over the course of your life. Sadly, it was about the only cool thing that had happened lately.

“You can do this,” you mumbled to yourself, empty knapsack slung over your back and fire ax in hand, quietly creeping from your room out into the hallway. “It’s daylight so they can’t surprise you.” 

You hadn’t seen any of them in the hotel yet, knock on wood, just when you peeked out your third floor window. They were sometimes there, shuffling toward their next targets, if there were even any targets left in the area. You hadn’t seen another living person in over a week, just the victims. You didn’t intend to be added to that list.

It had been 15 days since it started, innocuously enough. The power went out that morning a few hours before you were due to check out, which didn’t strike you as particularly strange. When you tried to look at your cell phone for the time, though, it was dead. All of your electronics were dead. Your car in the parking lot was also dead. Electronic components were in pretty much everything. It didn’t strike you to what degree until that day. You assumed it was a terrorist attack or a powerful solar flare disrupting electronics, both of which sucked, and neither of which you could do anything about.

You decided to stay put until you had more information. Things could be worse elsewhere, especially if terrorists were involved. You weren’t in a major city or likely target. Someone who knew something had to show up in the near future. Staff and guests left the hotel, though, trying to get home and contact their loved ones by any means necessary. Frantic, confused people were bad enough, but that was when things got a whole lot worse.

Luck had been on your side when you were gazing out the third floor window and spotted a screaming woman running from four things that you really couldn’t call people anymore, even from a distance. They were slower, but she was getting winded because she wouldn’t stop screaming. You sighed. People were idiots.

They caught up with her at the edge of the parking lot. A few seconds were enough to make you close the curtain with a shudder. “Welcome to the zombie apocalypse,” you muttered to yourself. After witnessing that, you grabbed the fire ax and collected what supplies you could as quickly and quietly as possible. You’d try to wait it out.

Unfortunately waiting it out hadn’t worked out as well as you’d hoped. There had been less of the zombies around, but they were still a presence. You pushed open the lobby door and stepped out into the sunlight, glancing right and left quickly. The bustling town of a couple weeks ago might as well have been a ghost town -- well, a highly looted ghost town littered with decaying remains.

There was a gas station down the street, maybe a couple hundred yards away. It seemed like the best bet for a quick supply run. You tried to reassure yourself that most of the zombies were probably long gone, headed to the next town over in search of more victims. Zombies didn’t like to eat other zombies, did they? You wondered if the facts about fictional zombies held true to what seemed to be real zombies.

You managed to make it down the street without incident and let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. You just needed to get in the gas station, grab whatever was left, and hurry back to your room. This would all be over in twenty minutes tops.

When you opened the door, you were greeted up close and personal by a member of the walking dead. The smell was like nothing else that had ever assaulted your senses before. You swung the ax hard at its head while you tried not to hurl. The ax made contact, but unfortunately, you couldn’t get it pulled out of the rotting flesh and bone. Instead of a permanently dead zombie, you were dealing with a pissed off zombie with an ax sticking out of its head. Lovely.

You sprinted away as it followed you. It hadn’t attracted the attention of more zombies. Yet. You noticed a couple in the hotel parking lot near the lobby entrance when you got closer. Time to come up with a backup plan until the zombies lost interest. If they ever lost interest. There was a fire ladder attached to the side of a building you were about to pass. You’d take your chances. If zombies could climb ladders, you were screwed, but they didn’t seem to be overly coordinated. Apparently, neither were you. After losing your footing, you got up a several rungs before something grabbed your ankle.

A reluctant glance down revealed it was the first zombie you’d seen. On the plus side, your foot was out of the range of its mouth for the moment. You kicked frantically to no avail. Damn your sensible shoes. You wished you’d worn stilettos. Getting a 5” heel to the brain had to at least provide a distraction enough to wiggle your foot away. 

It was going to pull you down sooner or later if you couldn’t figure out how to get free. Considering the attention it had drawn from the other zombies, that was probably going to be a sooner. Shit.

A gunshot echoed through the parking lot, and your ankle was suddenly free. You looked around for your savior, confused and grateful. You spotted him using a machete with military precision to take down the other two zombies headed in your direction. You wondered if he was current or former military. You’d always liked a man in uniform.

You stood there in shock when he approached you, a tall blond man wearing a leather jacket, chinos and a pair of brown oxfords, looking entirely out of place in a zombie apocalypse. You couldn’t complain, though. He looked familiar, but you couldn’t place him. If you’d crossed paths before, there wasn’t any recognition on his part. “Thanks.”

He smiled a weary smile. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

You returned the smile with a sigh of relief. “Yeah. I’m a little shaken up, but I’m fine. I wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t shown up, though.”

“I just did what anyone would have done. Are there any other survivors here?” he asked, his tone a bit hopeful.

“I haven’t seen anyone in over a week. I’ve been hiding out in that hotel, but I ran out of supplies. Are you with any other survivors?” You figured there would be strength in numbers in this kind of situation.

He shook his head. “You’re the first person I’ve seen since I headed out of NYC.”

“That has to be a few hundred miles from here. This is that widespread? How did you even get here?” Your stomach felt sick.

“I found an old pickup truck that still ran, and I’ve been stopping for supplies and to siphon gas whenever I need it,” he replied.

You weren’t surprised he was a survivor, between his battle skills and resourcefulness. You were just lucky, but that counted for something. “Are you headed anywhere in particular?”

“Malibu. A friend of mine was there last I heard, and if anyone could find a way to survive this, it’s him.” The confidence didn’t quite reach his voice, but you were sure a few hundred miles of death and devastation would do that to anyone.

“Can I...” you trailed off, not wanting to impose, but not quite ready to accept that it was only a matter of time before your luck ran out if you stayed where you were.

“Of course. Are you headed anywhere?” He started walking toward an old pickup truck parked at the gas station, and you followed in step.

Your response was immediate. “I’d like to stop by my family’s place. It shouldn’t be too far off the way to Malibu if you’re taking the interstates. You don’t have to, though, I mean-”

“No, we will. Family is important.” He opened the passenger side door for you. “I’m Steve, by the way.”


	2. Scavengers

The interstate had fewer abandoned cars littering it than you expected, not that the 7:00am on a Sunday morning when the electronics died could be considered rush hour by any stretch, small blessing that it was. Steve drove slower than he had to anyway. You weren’t sure if he was being cautious or looking for survivors. Maybe a little bit of both.

You hadn’t seen anyone, well, anyone alive at least. If it wouldn’t have damaged your ride, you probably would have made a point of going Grand Theft Auto on the zombies you came across out of principle. The only good zombie was a zombie who wasn’t getting back up again.

“Are you still a soldier?” you eventually asked to break the silence.

“I’m a veteran. How did you know?” He glanced over at you briefly.

“Most civilians wouldn’t be badass zombie killers. Seemed more likely than my second guess. You’re not the mercenary type, considering what you’re dressed in. I don’t think many assassins dress like someone’s grandpa,” you replied before adding, “no offense intended.”

“None taken.” His mouth quirked into a half smile. “We need to stop for gas and supplies soon and find a place to spend the night.”

“Do you have anywhere particular in mind?” You looked down at the map that was neatly folded in the cup holder. They still had paper maps that weren’t printed with driving directions on the internet? At least he apparently could read and follow old-fashioned maps. You’d been spoiled by having a GPS tell you every turn and reroute the directions if you missed one.

“We’ll just take the next exit and see what we can find there. If we’re lucky, we’ll find a grocery store that still has some bottled water and non-perishables left.”

You chuckled when he signaled as he got off on the exit. “I don’t think zombies know how to obey traffic laws.”

He shrugged. “Old habits die hard.”

You stared at the businesses slowly passing by, with darkened interiors. The sunlight wasn’t very revealing of what was contained within, but broken windows and doors were more telling. You wondered if the damage was caused by vandals or hungry zombies. You hoped it was the former.

Steve pulled into a strip mall parking lot, taken up mostly by a chain supermarket. You followed him when he hopped out of the truck and went back to the bed, opening the cover.

“Do you know how to use one of these?” he asked, gesturing to a small stockpile of various guns and ammo boxes. Impressive. You wondered if they came from his own private collection, or if he’d looted them when things went to hell.

“No. I never did get around to learning,” you admitted. “Kind of wish I had now.”

“We’ll worry about that later.” He glanced over his arsenal pensively for a moment before he picked up an ax, much larger than the fire ax you’d previously wielded. “Aim for the top of the head. The weight of the ax and gravity will do the rest.”

“Okay. I can do that.” You took it from him and experimentally swung it in an arc. It was much heavier and would definitely pack more of a punch. You noticed something round under a tarp next to the arsenal. “What’s that?”

“We’ll talk about that later.” He pulled the cover forward and shut the truck’s bed.

“Okay?” You wondered what he meant, but dismissed it. You’d probably be better off if he was somehow shady than you would be at the mercy of the undead with your lack of combat and survival training. “Are you planning on fighting zombies hand-to-hand?”

He opened his jacket to reveal a pair of pistols and sheathed machete. “I’m good.”

When you reached the entrance, you peered inside the glass doors. There were fortunately skylights that provided enough sun through the ceiling that you didn’t need flashlights, but just barely.

“Stay close.” He slipped through the already partially opened automatic doors, and you trailed behind. Once inside, he pulled the doors shut behind you. “Don’t want any of them sneaking up on us from behind.”

You stalked the perimeter with him nervously. The entire supermarket was pretty wrecked from looting, and if the dark wet spot you nearly slipped in was any indication, zombies. The silence was unsettling, but it was soon broken by a trio of zombies approaching from the baking goods aisle.

Steve’s response was immediate. He was fast with the machete -- the first one was down in a few seconds. You watched, completely entranced by his combat skills, the way his fighting looked like an intricately choreographed dance.

You almost missed the squeak of the swinging back room doors behind you. When you spun around, it revealed another one slowly shuffling toward you. You took a few steps back to muster some gumption. With a gulp, you lifted the ax and swung downward at its head as hard as you could. It fell immediately to your relief.

You peered down at the body to make sure it wasn’t getting back up. The head was split into two disgusting pieces, which was gross enough by itself, but the remaining decaying brain matter clinging to the ax blade was enough to make your stomach churn. At least it was out of commission. You were safe for now.

“Jesus,” you muttered, taking a deep breath to still your stomach.

“You okay?” Steve asked, placing a large hand on your shoulder.

“Yeah, just feeling a little sick.” You gestured at the ax blade without actually looking at it. The image had imprinted itself in your mind anyway, vivid behind your eyes when you shut them.

He gently squeezed your shoulder. “Combat is messy. You’ll get used to it.”

You simply nodded and took another deep breath to center yourself. “This place is pretty trashed. Do you think there’s going to be anything worth grabbing in here?”

He glanced at the toppled shelves on the next aisle with a frown. “We’ll finish looking around out here first, but we’ll probably have better luck in the stockroom.”

The rest of the sales floor was free of zombies, but unfortunately also nearly free of anything useful. You managed to wrangle up several cans of soup and Spam. Apparently, even in the apocalypse, no one really wants Spam.

“Let’s try the stockroom now that this area is secure. Don’t wander far,” Steve warned as you entered the door.

You nodded and remained within arm’s reach of him as he swung open the door.

It wasn’t lit by skylights so the stockroom was completely dark, except for the beam created by your flashlights. Steve swept his across the room in a slow arc, revealing less destruction than there had been on the sales floor.

“Looks like we may have lucked out here,” he commented, leading you along the wall slowly while he surveyed the area.

“This is creepy. It’s entirely too quiet, like in a horror movie or something.” It would have been easy to let paranoia overcome you in a situation like this, but you tried to keep your cool. You had a former soldier on your side who had taken you under his wing. He knew how to survive.

Steve grabbed a creaky L-cart from against the wall and pulled it over to a pallet of bottled water. Some of it was destroyed, but there were about a dozen useable cases.

You noticed some canned goods in some nearby bins while Steve loaded up the water. Eager to get out of the stockroom and its foreboding darkness, you turned to the bins. “I’m going to grab some of these.”

Steve nodded. “Be careful.”

After looking over the contents of the bin, you decided on canned ravioli and chili. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too awful cold. You grabbed some wrapped cases of cans and started piling them on the L-cart. The plastic wrapping was loose on one of the packages, and a can rolled below the bins.

You kneeled and reached underneath the bottom shelf to rescue the dropped can. It seemed wrong to abandon a potential meal when those seemed to be in short supply. Your hand bumped into something that didn’t feel much like a can. You pulled it out anyway and looked it at with the flashlight. That was definitely a gnawed on forearm and hand, bloodied and wearing a tattered sleeve from a plaid fleece shirt that didn’t completely conceal the bones jutting out from where it had apparently been forcibly ripped from its owner.

You dropped the forearm in shock and fell backward with a yelp.

“Are you alright?” Steve asked, approaching from the next set of bins. “What happened?”

“I’m...” You took a couple of deep breaths and wished that you’d listened when someone had suggested learning meditation and breathing exercises. Inner calm would be really handy.

Steve shined his flashlight at you on the floor, then panned to the area surrounding you. He apparently spotted the forearm. “Where did that come from?”

“A can rolled under the steel, and I reached down there to get it, and I obviously did not end up grabbing a can.” You pushed yourself up to your knees and backed away from the arm.

Steve offered you a hand and pulled you to your feet. “It’ll get easier.”

“I’ll get used to it?” you asked, skeptical.

“Not really used to it,” he admitted, “but you’ll be able to keep going and survive despite it.”

“Surviving sounds better than ending up like that.” You grimaced as you used your foot to shove the forearm back underneath the bins, out of sight.

“I think we’ve got as much as we’re going to fit into the truck for now. It’s going to start getting dark soon so we should head out and find a place to spend the night.”

You nodded as he pulled the L-cart toward the sales floor, clutching the ax tight in your hands. The walk to the parking lot was fortunately uneventful, maintaining that creepy horror movie feel that you were growing less and less fond of. The sun was already well into its journey west on the horizon. Were zombies primarily nocturnal? That old zombie movie was called Night of the Living Dead.

Steve unloaded the heavy cases of food and water several at a time, effortlessly and quickly, which impressed you. “A lot of guys don’t keep in shape after they get out of the service.”

“I wouldn’t say that I’d fall into the category of ‘a lot of guys,’” he replied with an amused smirk.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” you lightheartedly accused, “but I suppose there’s something to be said for a tall, not-so-dark, but still very handsome man of mystery.”

He ducked his head and blushed, wearing a small, shy smile. “Thanks.” 

“Just pointing out the obvious.” You hadn’t thought anyone could pull it off, but awkward and slightly embarrassed was a good look on him. It was a curious thing, though, that someone so blatantly attractive, and a former soldier to boot, wouldn’t be used to the compliments. A lot of women loved men in uniform and wouldn’t hesitate to make that known, or even try to thank the soldier for his service by servicing him.

“Well, uh, we should head out, find a place to spend the night.” He paused for a moment. “I mean to sleep, not...other things. Not that you’re not pretty or swell, but I-”

You’d been called a lot of things in your life, but ‘swell’ definitely wasn’t one of them. The enigma that was Steve kept growing. You decided to be kind and save him from the hole he was digging himself into and placed a hand on his arm. “I understand. Let’s get out of here and to somewhere safer before one or both of us ends up as a zombie’s midnight snack.”


	3. Cheap Motel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't abandon this! I have ideas. I just spend too much time RPing and having other plot bunnies.

The sun was well on its way to setting across the horizon when Steve pulled into a motel parking lot, an obviously older cheap one that boasted their low nightly rates on a sign that had seen better days. It was probably full of roaches, bedbugs and god knows what else. ‘The undead?’ your brain supplied as an unpleasant afterthought.

“You could have gone for something a little nicer, maybe a Holiday Inn,” you muttered under your breath.

“The nicer ones have electronic key cards to get into the rooms. This one still has keys,” he responded. “And it’s better than spending the night in the truck.”

“You have really good hearing,” you commented, then paused and stared at him. “Actually, you have really good everything. It’s almost creepy.”

He chuckled as he hopped out of the truck. “I wouldn’t say everything. C’mon, let’s get settled in before it gets dark.”

“When the sun’s away, the undead come out to play?” you asked.

“Something like that,” he responded dryly.

You grabbed the ax from the floorboard and quietly headed toward the hotel office behind Steve. The door was unlocked, and you weren’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. The windows weren’t busted out, but really was there going to be much of anything to loot? The place didn’t even offer continental breakfast.

A single window at sunset provided minimal light, but enough to show a lack of movement. It was safe for the moment. Steve was already looking for the room keys behind the desk while you fiddled with your flashlight to get a better look around for anything useful. Maybe you’d get lucky and find a paperclip you could go MacGyver with later and escape from the clutches of a zombie overlord.

“Duck!” Steve suddenly barked out.

You instantly dropped to your knees, and a single shot rang out before the weight of a very large, very wet, very undead person sent you sprawling down onto your face. You were thoroughly pinned to the ground by a whole bunch of dead weight, or rather undead weight. Yuck. When you tried to move, the top of the ax beneath you scraped the back of your upper arm. At least it wasn’t the blade.

Your stomach lurched at the pain combined with the weight and putrid smell of the zombie leaking on top of you. Steve effortlessly lifted and tossed the zombie off of you somehow. It had to have weighed at least 250 pounds. Even a guy hopped up on steroids would have to actually try to pick up that much weight and throw it. Maybe it wouldn’t be zombie overlords you’d have to escape. Steve could be an alien mastermind in disguise behind the zombie apocalypse, testing humans for some nefarious purpose. Maybe gladiator fights for alien entertainment.

Steve interrupted your thoughts. “Are you okay?”

“My arm,” you forced out as you tried to breathe evenly to keep the nausea at bay. “I can-” A deep breath. No puking on your savior-slash-alien mastermind. Either or.

Steve helped you to your feet, and the change in altitude was enough to undo the little bit of control you had over your stomach. You rewarded him for his assistance by spilling your lunch all over his oxfords and your own jeans. Not that it felt or smelled any worse than the zombie ooze already on them.

“I’m so sorry,” you said as he guided you toward the exit.

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

The seventeen stairs leading up to the second floor were probably the worst of your life, breath knocked out of you by the zombie, arm aching and clothes wetly stuck to your skin with ooze and vomit. The apocalypse sucked even more than in zombie movies, and it didn’t even have a cool soundtrack.

By the time the hotel room door was closed behind you and Steve deemed it free of zombies, you were running on automatic. You immediately started shucking your clothes and grabbed your flashlight, briefly glancing over at Steve who was staring at the floor, his cheeks flushed. That would be an interesting topic of conversation for later.

“You better work,” you warned the shower in the bathroom, setting your flashlight on its base so you had a dim glow to shower by. The water turned on to your relief. However, to your annoyance, it stayed cold. With a sigh and copious amounts of cursing, you got under the spray anyway and took full advantage of the free soap and shampoo that were sitting on the ledge. They didn’t smell very good, but anything was better than what you were covered with. Your arm wasn’t seriously wounded, just banged up, and the rest of you seemed to be as intact as ever.

The light changed, and you glanced through the clear plastic shower curtain to see Steve switching the flashlight for a candle. “Hi there.”

“I’m not watching you!” he immediately replied.

“Did I say you couldn’t?” you teased and swore you could see the blush again in the candlelight. You were as clean as you were going to get and pretty damn cold anyway so you shut off the water and pulled open the curtain.

Steve swallowed and was making an obvious effort to avert his eyes, but they still wandered a bit. It was an ego boost that a guy so attractive was checking you out.

“Like what you see, soldier?” You reached around him to grab a towel folded on a rack and started to dry your hair. The cheap and scratchy material didn’t feel good against your skin, but you supposed comforts like fabric softener weren’t really a part of an apocalypse scenario.

“I-” he started and paused before he blurted out, “I think I’m going to take a shower now.”

“Enjoy the cold water,” you called over your shoulder, but let him have his privacy, as much as you would have liked to peek.

It occurred to you that you didn’t have a change of clothes, and you sure as hell weren’t putting back on the filthy ones until you washed them. They were soaked through to your bra and panties. After Steve got out of the shower, you could rinse them off and soak them with some soapy water at least, if you didn’t pass out before then from exhaustion.

There were a couple candles casting a dim glow on the room, which contained a single queen size bed and no chairs. Sleeping arrangements would be interesting. The only thing you were sure of was that no one was going to sleep on the floor in a place like this. It would be ridiculous to die because of some vermin-carried disease when there were perfectly good zombies out there to let you go down fighting to the end.

You plopped onto the bed and lay down, feeling every spring in the mattress against your back. The truck probably would have been more comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 is already started. It should be done soon.


End file.
